Tapioca Pudding

One of my favorite desserts growing up was tapioca pudding. You don’t see it that much anymore. Kids get pre-made puddings from the grocery store.

My parents don’t make it that often as it requires too much (for them) careful stirring while the tapioca cooks. And you won’t find tapioca on any low-carb diets as it is pure starch, from the same plant as cassava.

Yet tapioca pudding is one of those comfort foods that conjures up happy childhood memories. It’s actually really easy to make.

Tapioca Pudding Recipe

Look at the instructions on the package of tapioca that you buy. Some small pearl tapioca requires overnight soaking in water. If your package has that requirement, reduce the milk in the recipe to 2 1/2 cups from 3 cups.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup small pearl tapioca (you can usually find it in the baking section of the grocery store, do not use instant tapioca)
• 3 cups whole milk (or skim milk with cream added)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

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Make Your Own Juice Popsicles

Is there nothing better than an ice-cold popsicle on a sweltering summer day? No need to wait for the icecream man’s truck to make a pass through your neighborhood. It is easy to make your own popsicles. Do you make popsicles at home? How do you make your favorites?

I bought the rocket molds for these popsicles years ago. Similar molds are available through Amazon.com by Tovolo. The Tovolo molds come with a snap-in base to hold them upright in the freezer. The molds easily come off of the popsicle after you run them under warm water for a few seconds. The handle doubles as a “drip pan” to catch the juice as it melts. A potential problem is that the molds may stand too high for some people’s freezer compartments. But the upside is that you can easily remove one popsicle at a time.

There are other molds available on the market, some with built-in reusable plastic sticks, some using wooden sticks. An ebay or Google search for “popsicle mold” will turn up many options. In addition to the popsicle molds by Tovolo I found similar sets of popsicle molds for sale.

Make Your Own Juice Popsicles

What juices to put in the mold? My favorite is lemonade. If you use ready made juice or lemonade, you might want to boil it down first, reducing the juice by about a half, and add a little corn syrup. If you are using frozen concentrated juice, add half as much water as you would normally. The biggest problem with homemade juice popsicles is that they turn out too icy. A higher sugar to water ratio will help reduce the iciness, as will a little bit of corn syrup.

Ingredients

• 3/4 to 1 cup granulated sugar (depending on how sweet you want them, and if you are using Meyer lemons, use less sugar)
• 1 cup water
• 1 Tbsp light corn syrup
• Zest of 2 lemons
• 1 cup of lemon juice (about 4 large lemons)

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Eggs Nested in Sautéed Chard and Mushrooms

This is my lazy girl’s lunch. Lazy, because even when I’ve eaten every last pickle in the fridge, I can usually find a few fresh eggs, a couple mushrooms, and half an onion there. Lazy, because when I can’t be bothered to go to the store, I have to look for what I can scrounge in the garden, and the only things thriving in my garden bed at the moment (early March) are parsley and chard. And who wants to eat a big plate of sautéed parsley?

Beautiful, happy, survived-with-winter, about-to-be-eaten Swiss chard

Now that I think about it, this dish could also be considered a lazy girl’s dish because it’s really easy to make, and only uses one pan, preferably one with a stick-free coating (meaning that it takes less than a minute to clean up.)

But the real reason I love this dish? Because it tastes so good. Fresh Swiss chard is probably the most delightful leafy green you can eat. Tender, not bitter, almost sweet in fact, and I’m convinced it’s got built-in seasoning. You just don’t need to add much salt to chard. Top it with a runny egg and the egg yolk creates a luscious dipping sauce for the chard. The mushrooms are just there for fun. I love mushrooms with eggs, and shiitakes pack a lot of flavor, so you only need a couple.

Eat your greens!

Eggs Nested in Sautéed Chard and Mushrooms Recipe

Shiitakes are highly flavorful mushrooms, and will really make this dish special if you use them, though you can use just about any mushroom. You can also skip the fresh mushrooms and sprinkle the eggs with truffle salt.

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 pound of fresh chard
• 2-3 large shiitake mushrooms, sliced into 1/4-inch thick slices
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 to 2 eggs

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Homemade Pizza

What to do when your 8-year old nephew comes to visit? Make pizza, of course! Well, not of course, actually. I didn’t think of it until we exhausted Sorry, Monopoly, and gin rummy. But it did turn out to be a brilliant idea as dad had just received a baking stone for Christmas, and my nephew Austin loves pizza.

I told him if he helped me make it and didn’t make too many faces I would put him on my website and he would be famous. That seemed to get his attention. He thought the dough was “slimy and gross” but he loved picking his own toppings, and the finished product was “awesome”.

The following method I patched together from recipes in both Joy of Cooking and Cook’s Illustrated’s The Best Recipe. I made two batches of dough, four pizzas in all, with varied toppings.

Next time I’ll be a bit more patient with stretching out the dough so I can get it even thinner. Look to the end of this post for some excellent links about pizza from other food bloggers.

Homemade Pizza Recipe

Pizza dough is a yeasted dough which requires active dry yeast. Make sure the check the expiration date on the yeast package.
You can use all purpose flour instead of the bread flour that is called for in the recipe, but bread flour is higher in gluten than all-purpose flour and will make a crispier crust for your pizza.

Ingredients

Pizza Dough: Makes enough dough for two 10-12 inch pizzas

• 1 1/2 cups warm water (105°F-115°F)
• 1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) of active dry yeast
• 3 1/2 cups bread flour
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Pizza Ingredients

• Olive oil
• Cornmeal (to help slide the pizza onto the pizza stone)

• Tomato sauce (smooth, or puréed)
• Mozzarella cheese, grated
• Parmesan cheese, grated
• Feta cheese, crumbled
• Mushrooms, thinly sliced
• Bell peppers, stems and seeds removed, thinly sliced
• Italian sausage, cooked ahead and crumbled
• Chopped fresh basil
• Pesto
• Pepperoni, thinly sliced
• Onions, thinly sliced
• Ham, thinly sliced

Special equipment needed

• A pizza stone, highly recommended if you want crispy pizza crust
• A pizza peel or a flat baking sheet
• A pizza wheel for cutting the pizza, not required, but easier to deal with than a knife

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Rice Pilaf

Trying to get a recipe out of my mother is like pulling teeth.

Mom doesn’t follow recipes. After 50 years of cooking for her family she doesn’t need to.

She cooks instinctively, pulling ingredients from what we have on hand, making substitutions or additions as she sees fit. Taste testing here and there for a little more of this or that.

To get a recipe out of her I have to watch her make something, take copious notes, and ask a lot of questions.


For each seemingly innocuous question, there can be a dissertation’s worth of answers. “Well, Adele Davis did it this one way, Diane Kennedy did it this other way, and I do it this way because (fill in the blank… my pot is too big, I’m using an electric range, we don’t have any fresh cilantro.. etc. etc.)”

My mother is never one to give someone the time when a thorough explanation of how the watch works and how they made clocks in China 2000 years ago will do.

(Mom is a treasure trove of knowledge and I will never catch up to her, even if I cook every day for the next 40 years.)

Here is how my mother makes her rice pilaf. It isn’t a precise recipe because much depends on the type of rice and the type and amount of stock you have.

But then again, rice pilaf is one of those foundation dishes that you can dress up in many different ways.

Rice Pilaf Recipe

To save time, my mother heats the stock separately, at the same time that the rice is browning. This way the stock doesn't take as long to come to a boil when you go to cook the rice. But, you don't have to do it that way. You can easily add cold stock to the rice to cook it, it will just take longer to come to a simmer.

Ingredients

• 2 cups white rice (preferably long grain)
• 2 teaspoons of olive oil (or chicken fat)
• 1/2 cup chopped onion - green onion (scallions) or yellow onion
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• Up to 4 cups of stock (amount depends on the type of rice you are using), either chicken stock or vegetable stock for vegetarian option, or a mix of water and stock*
• 2 teaspoons of salt or seasoned salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

*For gluten-free version, use gluten-free stock.

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How to Make Pickled Red Onions

I keep on making things that when I think about it, would be enhanced with some pickled red onions. Bean soup, liverwurst, salmon, and especially hot dogs and hamburgers would all be terrific with some pickled onions on the side.

All you really need to make pickled red onions is some sliced red onion, vinegar and sugar. There’s lots of leeway with the spices and herbs used.

For this batch I used cinnamon, cloves, star anise, bay leaf and red pepper flakes. You could easily thrown in some ginger, swap out the chile flakes for some cumin, or allspice for the cloves.

How to Make Pickled Red Onions

Ingredients

• 1 lb red onions (about 2 med or 1 large), thinly sliced
• 1 1/2 cups white vinegar
• 1/2 cup sugar

Spices

• 1/2 cinnamon stick
• 5 cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 star anise
• Dash red pepper flakes

More spices (optional): Fresh ginger slices, allspice berries, oregano, garlic, cumin seeds, mustard seeds

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Sautéed Petrale Sole in Herb Butter Sauce

Raised Catholic, I grew up eating fish every Friday (not just during Lent as the custom goes these days). Often it was just a simple tuna macaroni salad, but we kids were exposed to a variety of fish and seafood on a regular basis.

Thank goodness! We still eat fish almost every Friday (old habits die hard) and are always looking for new ideas to cook with the fresh fish we find at the market.

Here is a recipe for petrale sole (a Pacific flounder) that is served with a quick sauce made with shallots, white wine, and butter. You could use this sauce over any mild fish fillet.

Do you have a preferred way of preparing sole fillets? Or other Lenten dishes? If so, please let us know about it in the comments.

Sautéed Petrale Sole in Herb Butter Sauce Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds fresh petrale sole fillets
• Salt, to taste
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 3 Tbsp minced shallots
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 2 Tbsp, cut into 4 pieces, cold, unsalted butter
• Fresh thyme leaves (or any fresh herb for flavor)
• Minced fresh chives
• Lemon wedges (use Meyer lemons if available)

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